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Red Suit posted:I'm going to start Baldur's Gate: EE for the first time. Any tips or pointers I should keep in mind? 1. Missile weapons on everyone. 2. Use your consumable items, there's way too much to hoard. 3. Keep the pantaloons. Always keep the pantaloons!
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Jul 21, 2014 19:32
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| # ? May 14, 2024 01:43 |
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Arivia posted:And high Intelligence scores get you more spell slots, I think. It affects the max number of known spells (spells in your spell book) but not the number of spells you can cast.
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Jul 21, 2014 19:38
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Personally for mages I prefer to start out with an 18 Int and raise it to 19 so I don't have to worry about keeping potions of genius around in order to learn new spells. Also, doesn't EE require you to have 18 Int in order to cast 9th level spells?
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Jul 21, 2014 19:43
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Just use bgtweaks to enable 100% spell learn chance. (let's not pretend you don't reload when you fail to learn an important spell)
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Jul 21, 2014 20:03
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Mr. Neutron posted:Just use bgtweaks to enable 100% spell learn chance. After countless playthroughs I finally managed to kick this habit recently. Maybe it's because I have a bit of a masochistic streak when it comes to gaming but I actually kind of like the concept, as it adds tension when you are trying to scribe an expensive scroll. It makes potions of genius actually serve a purpose. It also helps with the economy a bit for all the mid-level scrolls, as I hate having over a hundred thousand gold on me at any given time (I usually install the SCS tweak to triple the Shadow Thieves' asking price to 60,000/45,000 gold to help with this as well).
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Jul 21, 2014 20:17
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Mr. Neutron posted:Just use bgtweaks to enable 100% spell learn chance.
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Jul 21, 2014 21:07
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Antignition posted:After countless playthroughs I finally managed to kick this habit recently. It's tempting to try to play that way but man I can't imagine doing that it in IWD or IWD2 where spell scrolls are so rare. If you fail to scribe the one you wanted in that and don't reload you're hosed because you might not see it again.
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Jul 21, 2014 21:14
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Factor_VIII posted:There is a limit to the number of spells you can learn per level based on intelligence that's separate from the chance to learn spells. E.g. Int 9 mages can know up to 6 spells per level, while Int 18 mages up to 18.Potions of Genius can sidestep that issue, but it seems like an unnecessary hassle, particularly since its very easy to get a large stat point total so you can afford a starting 18 Int. No level has more than 6 useful spells though.
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Jul 21, 2014 21:18
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I've been playing through BGII:EE and I ended up getting hit by a chain of companion quests. Nalia gets kidnapped while I'm working on Neera's quest (and Rassad's). While I'm gathering information to get her back, Jaheira gets cursed and I have to cure her. Before that, Anomen made me kick out Hexxat. It's been a chaotic run so far. I'm really enjoying the EE content, for the most part. It doesn't feel very well integrated having played BGII so many times but it's fun all the same.
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Jul 21, 2014 21:32
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In like Zinn posted:1. Missile weapons on everyone.
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Jul 21, 2014 22:44
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zedprime posted:1a. Run around in circles to make maximum use of your missile weapons until someone learns crowd control magic. 1b. If you're playing a mage then the best crowd control magic in BG1 is available at level 1 via the spell Sleep. voiceless anal fricative fucked around with this message at 00:59 on Jul 22, 2014 |
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Jul 22, 2014 00:56
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Will I regret swapping Yoshimo for Edwin? Everything I think I understand about BG and 2e in general tells me I won't miss much if I ditch him. For reference the rest of my party is a Gnome Illusionist/Thief, Dorn, Minsc, Jaheira, and Aerie (ugh, she's next..maybe for Viconia?).
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Jul 22, 2014 02:31
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Well you'll definitely miss something
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Jul 22, 2014 02:56
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Kinda, in that the guy introduced in and rescued from Irenicus' dungeon gets plot when you find Irenicus again. Especially because (nominally having played BG1), he has to make up in emotional weight for the fact you had no previous connection to him. Minsc goes "Mad Wizard killed my witch!" and you know what that means because the whole recruitment thing in BG1 was you and Minsc ploughing through a fortress full of Gnolls to rescue her. Finding out Yoshimo's deal with him is necessarily more intricate and involved. And much more interesting, really, at least I think so.
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Jul 22, 2014 02:57
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Also Yoshimo is the main part of the most rewarding quest in the game (in terms of xp reward.)
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Jul 22, 2014 03:08
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Factor_VIII posted:Also, doesn't EE require you to have 18 Int in order to cast 9th level spells? No, just to learn 9th level spells. This is why you can min-max a mage by going low on int and using potions when you need to learn spells. But just because you can do it doesn't mean it's fun. I would never recommend anyone skimp on int as a mage. If you're going to munchkin that hard you might as well just edit your stats. Edit: Or play a Sorcerer.
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Jul 22, 2014 03:22
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Pomale posted:Will I regret swapping Yoshimo for Edwin? Everything I think I understand about BG and 2e in general tells me I won't miss much if I ditch him. For reference the rest of my party is a Gnome Illusionist/Thief, Dorn, Minsc, Jaheira, and Aerie (ugh, she's next..maybe for Viconia?). Other than some relatively minor plot stuff, no you won't miss much. You already have a half thief PC so you should have all the thief skills you will ever need from just that half thief alone. No need for 2 thieves in the same party. Hell, you don't even really need 1 thief since Nalia and Imoen can do all the lockpicking/trap finding you will ever need, and they double as a great mage. Edwin was the best NPC mage in the game by far, although Neera might be better now since wildmages are pretty over powered. Minsc will most likely fight with Edwin too though and I doubt you can take both in your party for very long without them killing each other. Edwin will probably fight with Aerie too (he's kind of a dick), but I'm not 100% sure about that. Viconia is the best character to romance by far, but you don't really need her, and Jaheira, and Aerie all at the same time. That's a bit more divine spell casters than is necessary. Much better to add a full blown mage to your party since your PC is only a half-mage. Not a big deal though. If you are playing more for plot purposes only and you don't care as much about party balance, the "proper" thing to do is take Yoshimo for a while and then eventually swap him out for Imoen.
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Jul 22, 2014 05:56
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So BG2 EE is still super hosed and buggy, right? Kinda feeling the itch to play again, but I won't do it if that would just be painfully bad.
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Jul 22, 2014 06:26
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Arivia posted:So BG2 EE is still super hosed and buggy, right? Kinda feeling the itch to play again, but I won't do it if that would just be painfully bad.
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Jul 22, 2014 06:47
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Both enhanced editions are totally playable and relatively bug-free now, making the vanilla experience pretty objectively better in the EEs than in the original games. Some mods still dont (and maybe never will?) have EE ports though so if you like to mod your game to poo poo I'd still go with the originals.
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Jul 22, 2014 09:03
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And a follow-up question: How did the EE do in terms of making evil parties work? Is there now some options in BG2? They probably aren't great but it would be fun to take all the gently caress you options and mess around with Korgan and crew for the first time ever.
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Jul 22, 2014 11:04
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Not too well. Evil basically equals to being selfish and demanding a reward up front for everything and that's pretty much it, you will still help everyone you meet. Although there are a handful of quests you can solve the truly evil way (the buried alive man quest for ex.). Perhaps the new NPC add some but I don't know about those.
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Jul 22, 2014 11:22
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I completed my BG:EE run last week and have started on BG2:EE. I've never finished this so I'm looking forward to finally completing it. I'm currently in chapter 2 and am wondering how long you're supposed to stay here. Should I stay on this chapter while I complete every subquest that seems interesting or do I move the story forward? I remember reading something about a ton of quests that can only be completed during chapter 2 and I'd prefer to see as much of the sidequests as I can. Speaking of sidequests are there any easily missable ones that I should look out for?
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Jul 22, 2014 13:08
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you can do the majority now or wait till chapter 4 - depends how much you care about your sister you horrible person why are you even asking she is literally being tortured and raped right now.
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Jul 22, 2014 13:17
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Haha balls. I forgot that in normal BG (this is BGEE) that evil chars leave your party if your rep gets too high. Dorn you SOB at least give me my equipment back  I also dual classed Imoen at 6 to mage, kinda feels like she's not going to get thief skills back...until the very end of the game. Oops.
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Jul 22, 2014 13:30
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The new evil NPCs have legitimately evil quests which you can maximise by taking the evil routes. The original quests remain the same.
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Jul 22, 2014 14:00
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I'm glad I waited so long to pick up BG2:EE if it was so buggy before. I've only experienced one bug with Neera but exiting the game and reloading fixed it. It's been so long since I've done a proper run of BG2 I had forgotten how incredibly massive the game is. The new content just adds to it. Imoen can wait! I gotta herd cats and find hairbands!
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Jul 22, 2014 14:07
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There's always been one quest in BG2 that you almost always want to take the evil route for, unless you decide to cheese it and take the morally-equivalent-but-you-don't-lose-reputation option. Though that's only true if you imported your character from BG1.
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Jul 22, 2014 14:19
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Freaksaus posted:I completed my BG:EE run last week and have started on BG2:EE. I've never finished this so I'm looking forward to finally completing it. I'm currently in chapter 2 and am wondering how long you're supposed to stay here. Should I stay on this chapter while I complete every subquest that seems interesting or do I move the story forward? I remember reading something about a ton of quests that can only be completed during chapter 2 and I'd prefer to see as much of the sidequests as I can. I like to do literally every possible quest in chapter 2, except for some of the major boss fights (dragons, liches, etc). The reason why is that once you come back in chapter 4 you will have pretty nice magical items and that makes a lot of the sidequest content underwhelming. Oh wow, a +2 weapon quest reward.  Who loving cares when you have +3 or +4 already. That's my preference anyways. It works out ok. If you want Imoen in your group you will probably want to advance the plot a lot quicker though.
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Jul 22, 2014 16:23
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Is the Steam version updated to be the most current? I've still had some issues with crashing on load and on map change playing BG:EE online with a friend.
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Jul 22, 2014 17:20
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GuyDudeBroMan posted:I like to do literally every possible quest in chapter 2, except for some of the major boss fights (dragons, liches, etc). The reason why is that once you come back in chapter 4 you will have pretty nice magical items and that makes a lot of the sidequest content underwhelming. I do the boss fights too. I want to spend as much of the game possible having all the best items. The only problem with this approach is I usually take Imoen and she will be quite under leveled compared to the rest of your party if you do all the side quests before rescuing her. It's not a huge deal but it sucks a little bit.
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Jul 22, 2014 21:27
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Pierre McGuire posted:Is the Steam version updated to be the most current? I've still had some issues with crashing on load and on map change playing BG:EE online with a friend. I don't play multiplayer at all but from what I gather most of the people complaining on the official forums about BG:EE or BG2:EE being unplayable are complaining about multiplayer bugs. The next BG:EE patch will fix a great deal of that, and BG2:EE will follow.
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Jul 22, 2014 23:56
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Ginette Reno posted:I do the boss fights too. I want to spend as much of the game possible having all the best items. Yeah see I'm the opposite. I'd rather have a very slow incremental gain in power over time. To go from +1 to +2 to +3, and use and enjoy each level for as long as possible. That's why I leave the dragons/itches until chapter 4 and I don't set foot in Watchers keep until TOB. Well except floor 1 I guess. You kinda need floor 1 for the ammo belt and potion box. Those items make the game way less annoying.
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Jul 23, 2014 02:07
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GuyDudeBroMan posted:Yeah see I'm the opposite. I'd rather have a very slow incremental gain in power over time. To go from +1 to +2 to +3, and use and enjoy each level for as long as possible. That's why I leave the dragons/itches until chapter 4 and I don't set foot in Watchers keep until TOB. Well except floor 1 I guess. You kinda need floor 1 for the ammo belt and potion box. Those items make the game way less annoying. You can just install the BG2 Tweak Pack, there's an option to add ammo belts and potion bags to vendors before ToB if I remember correctly.
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Jul 23, 2014 02:27
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Arivia posted:And a follow-up question: Evil is basically unfixable. BG2 is a Hero's Journey, unrepentantly so, and gently caress you if you disagree with it. That's the game's stance. It gives you some token opportunities to be evil but doesn't seriously expect you to go through with it because it's a tonally hosed up experience. EE still makes the Evil experience leaps and bounds better than it was, thanks to the new party members and their quest lines, and with aTweaks to make the quest rewards no longer shaft Evil at every opportunity you can kinda suspend your disbelief and go with it now!
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Jul 23, 2014 03:50
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So I finally made it through the Bandit's Camp, and I even managed to score a set of Full Plate Mail!  I'm off to Cloakwood next, but I had a few questions before moving on: - I have the option to dual-class Imoen as a Thief/Mage, but I'm not sure whether I should or not. I read somewhere that if you do, you wait until Imoen is at Level 8. - Is there any way to improve Dynaheir's AC? I found the bracers that reduce AC to 8, but that's about it. Are mages just stuck with having a high AC, since they can't equip armor? - Up to this point, I've had Minsc use dual maces. Currently, he has a single point in the Mace skill, and three points in Dual Wielding. Is there a better weapon setup I could be using; one that might improve his attack? (Also, I tried equipping Minsc with a Long Bow, but for some reason, he won't use it.) - What's the difference between 'THAC0' and 'Base THAC0'?
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Jul 23, 2014 05:05
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Max Wilco posted:So I finally made it through the Bandit's Camp, and I even managed to score a set of Full Plate Mail! I think in BG2 imoen has 8 levels of thief. If you want character sheet-level continuity you can do this. As far as actually playing BG1 it will be a long time before you get your thief skills back (they are totally disabled until you hit level 9 as a mage, including weapon proficiencies - the character is basically a level 1 mage with a bunch of HP). I would recommend dual classing earlier or not at all, leaning to not at all unless you have another thief you want to adventure with. There are bracers of 6AC, and the mage west of Beregost sells Robes of the Good Archmagi which lower AC to 5 and give a small amount of MR and +1 to all saving throws. They cost a good chunk of money, like 30k at neutral reputation. You can also acquire these by killing Shandalar in Ulgoth's Beard I think "base THAC0" is your thac0 from proficiencies and strength with the weapon your holding, and "THAC0" is that, minus your weapon's enchantment and with any other relevant buffs. All that really matters is your current THAC0 when you are wielding a weapon, unless you want to be able to tell at a glance whether your character will do better with a +1 hammer or a +2 flail with 3 pips in maces in 2 in flails, or something.
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Jul 23, 2014 05:16
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kaschei posted:I think in BG2 imoen has 8 levels of thief. If you want character sheet-level continuity you can do this. As far as actually playing BG1 it will be a long time before you get your thief skills back (they are totally disabled until you hit level 9 as a mage, including weapon proficiencies - the character is basically a level 1 mage with a bunch of HP). I would recommend dual classing earlier or not at all, leaning to not at all unless you have another thief you want to adventure with. I think that was the reasoning behind the recommendation; it was so it would be in continuity with BG2. In any case, I don't think I'll try dual-classing. The only reason I thought it'd be worth doing is so I could get some spells that neither Jaheria or Dynaheir can learn.
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Jul 23, 2014 05:27
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If you have Dynaheir you should have found Gauntlets of Dexterity which you can use with mage robes but obviously not gauntlets of AC.
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Jul 23, 2014 05:35
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AC isn't that important to mages. If you're under direct assault, use your spells to protect yourself. Spells like mirror image and invisibility will keep your mage out of trouble far better than armor class could.
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Jul 23, 2014 06:11
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